Politics: Racism’s History on Both Sides

This is the start of a new theme of blog posts that I’m covering as I going to be doing updates on race based issues. Racism and other things like it will now be covered in every other political post of this blog as it is a political issue in addition to being a society issue and all sorts of other issues like that in the end.

Now we do have to admit that both Democrats and Republicans have or used to have issues with racism at some point in their political history. Some are better at things now than they used to be. But it still was an issue or it is an issue with both parties.

Let’s start with the Democrats. They were in support of slavery and this is a well known fact. Some people even bring that fact up today. But the Democrats have evolved from their once conservative ways. After the Civil War brought an end to slavery, the Democrats lost a lot of the future elections for quite a while, at least for the presidency. They took a good, long look at themselves and didn’t like what they saw.

This leads to the Civil Rights movement around 100 years after the Civil War. The Democrats came out in support of Civil Rights and advancing society past racism. That remains a pipe dream, but we can always strive to make the world better. Lyndon Johnson helped sign new laws and helped improve this country’s rights for black people and other minorities of race.

The Democrats moved forward and largely beyond their racist ways, giving us candidates who are not white in a prominent and notable way like John Lewis, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Cory Booker, and others that are hard to remember of think of offhand.

Now for the other side: Despite originally starting out as against slavery, the Republicans have been doing badly in recent years with their blatantly racist ways. It might have started when a lot of them came out against Civil Rights during that era. While there are members of this party who aren’t white, it can be hard to see them when nearly all of them are white, at least when we see them on TV. Now it isn’t in their control whether or not they are white. What is an issue is that there are hardly any prominent members of this party who want to associate themselves with ways that are very clearly against them.

It isn’t so much a problem that Trump is racist if the Republican Party were more adamant in their rebukes of him. This is just one of many ways in which Republican’ts fail to hold the guy in the White House accountable to anything. Trump clearly embraces racists and he might not have gotten elected without them. (Yes, I know that people who support him aren’t racist, but are there racists who don’t support him?) He wouldn’t ever decry them and is quite infamous for calling white supremacists very fine people. Yet people refuse to call him out on it in their own party because they embrace the racist vote.

I wish that I could end this on a happy note, but there is something good in the fact that I don’t see any current racist issues with Democrats. I’m sure others will disagree with me and not point out any facts in that discussion while they are certain of this alternative fact. And I do see a problem with the Republicans’ racist ways nowadays that they won’t admit. One side improved and the other devolved quite horribly.

Politics: The Russian Involvement in our Elections

With not much time to write a post, I thought that I would do and stick with something quite simple and one would hope a lot of people would both understand and believe. Ever since at least 2016, if not sooner, the Russians have been involved in US elections. This is illegal and an outright disregard for how the democratic process is to work. But that’s exactly what they want and why they do it. Plus, there might be some American politicians who would benefit from this and want this illegal help.

First, let’s start with a brief recap of some of the people that have benefited from this and might have illegal ties as a result. Of course, the Russians wanted Trump to win in 2016 and did a lot in order to ensure this, based on what we know about the fact news that they caused. There are a bunch of people that sadly rely on just facebook for their news or other, unreliable sources that the Russians are certain to exploit.

Josh Hawley might have benefited from Russian help, but there is currently no proof of connections between the two, just that they wanted him to win. Mitch McConnell is perhaps the most infamous person now with Russian help (even more infamous than Trump since he has a nickname now, namely Moscow Mitch) since he had said that he would deny that such a thing was happening and was only being said to help Obama.

Now there isn’t any real evidence that disproves that Russia is interfering in US elections. They would want that belief going around too. What some people, including me, are skeptical of is just how much influence they actually have. Are they actually changing the results? How much chaos are they causing, really? And are they doing it in a way where we’ll even notice the effects of what they are doing?

It wasn’t just 2016 that they affected our elections. It also happened in 2018 and is poised to again in 2020. They don’t even need to. Our own politicians are causing messes themselves that fuck everything up. Brian Kemp, for instance, didn’t need Russian help to purge more than enough people from the voting rolls that it could have changed who won that election. Trump and tons of other Republicans are complaining about vote by mail, certain that they won’t win that way yet also voting by mail themselves (at least in Trump’s case).

Still, we shouldn’t underestimate their power. We also shouldn’t excuse it just because the US has done things like it in the past. That doesn’t make what they are doing okay any more than it makes what we did okay. Plus, that was a while ago with leaders that are long gone now. It is always illegal for people to help elect someone in a country that they are not a citizen in.

It is hard to know just how much the extent of what is going on with Russia and US elections is. The threat is quite real. They like to put Republicans in charge, which should worry Republicans as much as it should worry Democrats. Plus, you wouldn’t want to learn that you didn’t take office on your own merits but only because another country wanted to sow discord in the whole electoral process of ours. This problem will not go away on its own and we can only hope that people will realize it is a problem and do whatever they can to solve it.

Politics: Why Bipartisanship is More Common Than You Think

It may seem like bipartisanship is dying and you wouldn’t even be wrong to think that. But it is not over, ending, or done with. And it is more than the largely party line votes where just one person from the other party votes with or against them too. It is such a huge part of politics even still today. And the fact that most people don’t know this is a shame because we don't get much of that as we could out of common knowledge.

How do I know this? Well, it isn’t the news that covers this. I get updates from politicians a lot that talk about all of the bipartisan bills that they are working on. I get updates from members of both parties, actually, despite never signing up for ones from the Republican senators that I get them from. (That will teach me to email them about important issues.) The fact that I only know about these bills and progress being made because of these emails is what’s sad. I don’t hear about them on any news source and you’d think that it should be more of a focus than it is. But I’m often hearing about things that are important that both parties are working on.

One of the best examples of bipartisanship that I can think of right now in office is Doug Jones. Of course, he has to be that way since he’s a liberal in a red state. But he has done all sorts of bills that have been signed by the guy in the White House. And even when there doesn’t really have to be bipartisanship due to how you live in a safe district, there are still people working together at times. The stimulus that passed this year was a unanimous vote by the senate of all who were working there and able to vote at the time.

Sadly, there isn’t too much else to say. I wish that people could know that the two parties still work together in more common ways than people think or would realize. And I won’t be doing any more posts covering the other political parties like I have been since I’ve run out of ideas or things to post about here. I wish that I had more examples of the two parties working together and as bad as things are, they aren’t nearly as bad as they otherwise could be.

Politics: Why I Wear a Mask and Other Thoughts on the Politics of Coronavirus

While I have talked some about coronavirus in some other blogs, I actually try to avoid it at times since I don’t want to get views based on that alone. But I have to do this post as I feel that it makes the most sense to address this while I can since it is something that needs address. Not just the first part, but tons of other parts about it as well. I don’t know if I’ll cover all that I want to, but I might as well start trying.

Honestly, I shouldn’t even have to write some of this post, such as the mask wearing. It is such a simple thing to do that it makes no sense not to. If you don’t want the government to infringe on your rights, that’s fine. But if you don’t care if you make others or yourself sick, they you are just an asshole. I wear a mask so people know that I am not an asshole. They may not all think that. But that’s what I do. I feel that when they became required in some places, that was the change for me. I was going to wear a mask most of the time.

Still, I may not always wear a mask when I’m supposed to. If I leave the home and am around others, then I have to either wear a mask or remain six feet apart from them unless I’m eating or drinking. I shouldn’t be going to gatherings as they shouldn’t be happening at all. We are supposed to stay at home and not go anywhere that’s not essential, even as places are opening again. But people don’t care about some of the common sense protocols.

It doesn’t help that the guy in the White House doesn’t fucking care about anyone. He tried to make people sign a waiver when doing a rally during a pandemic not to sue if they get the virus. Some bozos actually showed up and did get the virus. Whether or not they won’t be able to sue because of the waivers, I’m not entirely sure yet. They could be legal binding like I think that they are, but just as easily might not be. Trump has also attacked masks saying such dumb things like that people who don’t like him wear masks or that wearing one makes him look weak. He also changed where the Republican National Convention would be since they wouldn’t do it without the common sense social distancing measures. Meanwhile, the DNC is largely having a virtual reunion.

This is a problem. There are some people who still believe that coronavirus is a hoax. As in, not real. As in, all of these people who have died because of the virus are, what? Liars? Flu victims? Misclassified? Somehow wrong about what happened to them? So many people are concerned that they are over counting when they should be concerned of the opposite. So if there was a person who died of a car accident and had coronavirus, in their mind, they didn’t die of coronavirus. But what if breathing problems from the virus lead to the accident that caused their deaths? I don’t see why they are so concerned that the hype is overblown when over 100,000 people in just the US died. Do they think that there is some magic way of making that number lower due to the already unlikely idea that there is over counting?

Sadly, Trump doesn’t have the balls to issue a nationwide shutdown, so he passes the buck to the governors. This would serve as a loyalty test to all the Republican’t governors and a reason to attack all of the Democratic ones. A lot of them (The Democratic ones, obviously) did what they needed to by shutting down and staying shutdown for as long as it took. Not all of them did what was right, even if they were Democrats. Some had too loose restrictions and others didn’t make as much, if any, effort to work together.

Some people felt that the shutdowns went against their constitutional rights, feeling too upset by their lack of freedoms to be grateful for the fact that they were still alive and not infected with anything. At Trump’s urging, there were protests against the shutdowns that took place in what tended to only be where Democratic governors were in charge. They didn’t care about doing any of the social distancing efforts and the ones in Michigan even blocked hospital access as they could have easily taken illegal control of that capital.

Other issues related with the fact that primaries still had to happen in various states and there is still the general election that is happening later too. Some governors did what they felt was needed to do by delaying the planned primaries. This was despite the fact that it wasn’t something that they could do legally. That was why the Illinois primary didn’t change at all.

Still, Wisconsin became a notable state when Republican’ts, convinced that the other party would do terribly if the election went forward, convinced various judges all the way up to the US Supreme Court that the election should move forward. This actually backfired on them as many people were more determined to cast a vote and the Democrats got a new seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court as a result. Various states have had other issues with the voting process. Most of them handled it better than you’d think they would, like Kentucky, whose parties worked together to make sure that the elections would take place in a good way despite the circumstances against them.

We already have to wonder how this could affect the general election, other in obvious ways like who would win as a result. Trump has threatened to cancel or postpone the election, something he doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do (although that hasn’t stopped him before). It is likely that the election will go on as relatively normal as possible, but we still have a lot to worry about before it is over.

This has increased the idea of voting by mail to the point of some suggesting there be mail only elections in the future. It seems that some might be trying to do away with the Post Office entirely, but the prospect that it might end or be in danger could be overblown. Trump doesn’t want others to vote by mail as he is convinced that Republican’ts would lose if that were to happen. He’s not entirely wrong, but does have to realize that a lot of people who vote that way could actually be part of his party and base. Plus, he votes by mail himself. If he does something, why doesn’t he think that others can do it too? Does he feel that he can do anything he wants to, but others shouldn’t be able to do those same things too?

Something that is quite clear is that there is division and attacking during the process by the guy in the White House. He attacks the governors who do things better than him. He gives them nicknames instead of trying to work together with them. What’s weird is that coronavirus could have been how Trump turned things around and won himself a second term. Instead, much like Jeff Varner in Survivor: Game Changers, he took what little chance he had of staying around and destroyed it. Outside of any potential October surprise, I don’t think that Trump can win and will not believe what anyone of any party would say as to why he would stay around.

Because of the pandemic, some governors formed an alliance. Some of these, such as the one in the Midwest, are bipartisan as they consist of governors of both parties, even as most of them just happen to be Democrats with a few Republicans sprinkled in there as well. As much as I like the idea of this, I worry that some of this is just for show and doesn’t actually have the states coordinating as much together as they could otherwise be.

Other countries have had better responses at handling things than the US has. China has kept their death count lower than ours despite having way more people in it. Vietnam has managed to (if not currently, than at least at the time) keep their number of deaths at zero because of the intense lockdown orders they enacted early into the pandemic and kept doing even as much of the world were doing things better.

Most countries have their people’s support going up for their leaders due to the rally around the flag affect. This is true of a lot of the governors of this country. It is not true of dear leader as he has fucked things up that badly to the point of his never high approval deteriorating even more and ensuring that Joe Biden will be the next president starting January 20, 2021.

It can be hard not to stop listing Trump’s failures on handling the virus. While not responsible for it himself, he made things a whole lot worse, causing more infections and deaths. He has even caused the deaths of those who probably would have voted for them. I can even imagine his supporters making sure his tombstones say “Died of Trump’s poor coronavirus response, but still support him.” What’s sad is that many black people have died and it is possible that Trump is hoping that Biden voters are the ones dying and not his own.

Continuing his racist attacks, Trump loves to blame China for it to the point that racist attacks against those who are of that decent or look that way are blamed and attacked as a result. There is too much racism in this world and worth addressing in other blog posts. People don’t seem to realize just how dangerous it is to blame China from the virus. So what if it started there? If a pandemic started here, would we want to be blamed for something that is outside of our control that was a freak viral infection that no one caused intentionally? This is the problem that exists with blaming China for it. Any news source that insists everything is China’s fault in regards to this virus should not be trusted as they are only stoking their base by fueling lots of racist attacks. There is no reason to blame it on China or name covid19 after China.

People still after all the deaths still don’t understand just how big a deal this is. They think that if they only know three people who had it and none of them died, that all of these lockdowns are making things overblown. If you wanted me to believe that lockdowns were doing no good, then you would have to provide some sort of evidence that lockdown either did nothing or made things worse in terms of controlling the virus. I don’t think that such data exists, but you are more than free to comment on this post and try to get me to change my mind.

I’m going to end this post here as I’ve already talked for long enough and think that I have all of the bases that I wanted to have covered. I was going to include a paragraph on Pence including details as to him heading the coronavirus task force and another on the attack of Dr. Fauci, but I don’t feel that they are worth going into here. I have to stop myself here since I’m under a bit of a time crunch to get this post done by today. Maybe more will be in a new post at some point in the future as there is a lot for me to talk about in the future. But I will leave it here for now.

Politics: The Important History of the Know Nothing Party

Just a quick note here before we get to the already written introduction that I will be switching back and forth between this blog and another blog on Thursdays for now. Expect this every other Thursday unless or until something happens that changes it. The Tuesday posts are thus done for now as a result. Now let’s get to this post. Expect more posts of this blog in the near future as I will have more these next two days after today.

I believe that it was over a century ago that an important political party existed in the US that was called the Know Nothing Party. They existed around the time of the Civil War and had a lot of potential issues that they caused. Who were they and how were they important? They are more relevant today than most former political parties of the past.

Since the main part of the party, also known publically as the American Party, was to deny its existence to outsiders, it became derogatorily known as the Know Nothing Party. They were known for being anti-immigration and xenophobic, this once secret society.

When the Whig Party collapsed or was still fading away forever, this party emerged as one of the new ones to take its place. Its brief existence was leading into the Civil War as it sort of faded away forever after Lincoln won office. They were somehow split on the slavery issue so that is when it split up and apart, with most people switching to other parties if they stayed in politics in the end at all.

The importance of this party today is quite paramount. It seems like a lot of these people are in what we see of the worst sides of the Republican Party today. Trump is more like this old party than he is whatever a Republican is supposed to be. Plus, they are a great slur for this party since it seems like they often know nothing.

What else is there to say? Well, there’s not much else. As horrible and largely ineffective this party of the past was, they are present in the politics of Trumpism and the party that refuses to denounce him and his horrible ways. If we don't remember history's failures, we won't learn from them and thus repeat them.

Cast Update 7-7-2020

While it could be a while before there are any major changes to this blog in any way, it is worth noting that I might want to add random posts like you would see in my Good Wife or CSI: Cyber blog that haven’t been introduced here yet. There might be things that could also appear in my Elementary blog and should be before the end of this month. And I’m not talking about the usual political thing that often always appears. If the blogger format does change to a new thing, it might not happen for a while, if it happens at all. But I do have some planned posts that I’m hopefully able to write and would love to see if I can make it all happen in the future.

Tea Leoni: She will be in a project called Endangered, which will be a movie. There are no other things that I see her in right now besides that. I don’t know when they finished filming the show, but you’d think that those who are still doing projects will have stuff right now to do (if that makes sense).

Endangered: This is a movie about the lives of threatened species. We’ll see what role she has in it. The website I’m checking makes it seem like she’ll be lending her voice to it so maybe it will be some sort of documentary. The release date is unknown now.

Bebe Neuwirth: She’s had a recurring bit on Blue Bloods and may show up on it from time to time. There are other minor things that she has done. It appears that she will be in a new movie called Modern Persuasion. Another thing she is appearing in is Julia. She will also be in The Sandman.

Modern Persuasion: This movie has an unknown release date at this time. The plot is about a woman’s ex-boyfriend hiring her company which forces her to deal with various things in her life. I don’t know yet what role Bebe will play in this.

Julia: This is a pilot for a show about Julia Child, the chef. We’ll see if anything comes from the pilot in the future or not. It would have an edge if it was already filmed. The release date is currently unknown for this. Maybe one will never come.

The Sandman: There is no plot mentioned for this yet, but there is a picture with this that says this will be adapted from a Neil Gaiman book and be an Audible original based on that book. I don’t think that I’ll be able to review it as a result. This is set for release at some point in 2020.

Geoffrey Arend: He hasn’t really been doing that much yet. Maybe he will later. I guess we’ll see what will become of his career. Maybe there will be something in the future. I can only hope so. Until then, just wait to see what happens.

Kathrine Herzer: She hasn’t been doing much since the show ended or now, it seems. Maybe she is going back to a more normal life. Not all the child actors or actresses continue into the field when they get older as they want to do other things in life. Remember the people from Shining Time Station?

Evan Roe: Again, this person has not been doing much after the show ended. I guess it hasn’t been over long enough or a lot of these people just haven’t found a new job yet. You’d think that the filming would have ended long enough ago, but maybe not.

Tim Daly: I might easily run out of ways of saying that people from this show haven’t done much of anything yet now that the show has ended and it hasn’t been over that long. I can only hope that there are a lot of people who have something in the work at some point.

Zeljko Ivanek: He also has no new projects in the works right now, although he could be wanting to retire in the future or something like that. I won’t make assumptions and just wait until the next time I see something potentially in the next post.

Erich Bergen: He’s also doing nothing yet as of the show ending. How recently did filming wrap? Was it not that long ago? Why is no one that I’m looking up doing anything yet? I don’t get it. Whatever the reason, he has nothing yet and maybe that will change later.

Patina Miller: She is the narrator of a show called Word Party. That’s all that she’s doing for now. I think that she’s a mother so that may affect how much work she’ll be able to do. We’ll see what goes on in her life and I hope she can do something I can watch. She will also be in a project called Power Book III: Raising Kanan.

Word Party: This is a Netflix kids show that is available now. Patina is the narrator of it. I don’t know much about it. I doubt that I will be able to see it in the future. This show is about teaching others how to talk and learning simple things like that.

Power Book III: Raising Kanan: This isn’t set to air until 2021. It is a prequel about Kanan Stark, whoever that is. I doubt already that I’ll be able to see it, although I guess that it is possible that I might at some point. I hope to find out more info about this soon.

Wallis Currie-Wood: She has done very little outside of the show. Maybe she will do something more in Hollywood or maybe not. It will be hard to understand some of why I’m not seeing much in terms of what the cast is doing in the future unless or until more time passes.

Keith Carradine: He has two projects in the works. One is called Sallywood. The other one is called The Daylong Brothers. We’ll see what happens between those and anything else that he does. I look forward to hopefully seeing these films at some point in time. He will also be in something called The Power of the Dog. Maybe more will happen in the future.

Sallywood: This movie romantic in some way, but I don’t know if it’s a comedy or not. It is about a man who moves to Hollywood and becomes a woman’s personal assistant. They’ll be more to it than that. It has an unknown release date at this time.

The Daylong Brothers: This has an unknown release date at this time. It is about three brothers who try to get revenge on their father for selling their souls. This could be interesting, even if I don’t really like to watch horror films. But this could just be normal supernatural.

The Power of the Dog: I don’t know why they are making a Trump based movie. Wait, this has nothing to do with politics. It is about sibling rivalry that happens between two men who are brothers when one of them gets married. It is set for release in 2021.

Sebastian Arcelus: It looks like he will appear in a TV movie or perhaps potential pilot called Blanco. He’s doing better than others in terms of projects in the works. He’s also doing a project called Homebound. That is it for now.

Homebound: This is set for release in 2020. It is about a woman searching for her therapy dog as she deals with personal fears or things like that. There is no trailer for this yet or specific release date. It could be good, but I won’t know unless I can see it at some point.

Blanco: This has an unknown release date at the moment. It is about a criminal who seeks to work with the cops only to build his criminal empire. I have no idea what network this would air on, if any. This might be just another in a long line of passed pilots that I get confused about and wind up in this blog for a long time like what you might have seen in my CSI: Cyber blog.

Sara Ramirez: Despite not appearing or even being mentioned in the final season of this show, she has not done a thing since leaving this show. The others I can understand as they haven’t been off the show this long, but I want her to do something. And I hope she improves her hairstyle for the future.

Kevin Rahm: While the entire world is crazy right now and pilot season messed up, there still might be hope that he is doing something as I see him in Vegas High, the potential pilot for a TV show. We’ll see what, if anything, comes of it later.

Vegas High: This is a pilot for HBO Max. Whether or not it becomes a series is unknown, but if they already filmed the pilot, it would have an edge on other shows. The plot is about a female torn between her Mormon life and the fast paced life of Las Vegas. The release date is currently unknown.

Barbara Hall: I will see what future, if any, she might have in the film or movie industry. You’d think that she’d be doing something at some point or another, but maybe she won’t be at least for a while. I guess that I’ll keep her in the updates for now.

Schedule

Available now- Word Party (on Netflix)

Unknown 2020- Homebound, The Sandman

Unknown 2021- The Power of the Dog, Power Book III: Raising Kanan (unknown time on unknown network)

Unknown year- Endangered, Modern Persuasion, Sallywood, The Daylong Brothers, Blanco, Vegas High, Julia